Don’t judge the tree by its Fruit…

I was walking back home from my yoga class and while passing by a park I saw a young man throwing a sizeable rock up the redwood tree at the center of the park. My immediate thought was “oh there goes a man trying to kill a poor squirrel or a bird, maybe I should avoid this route to save myself from having to see this” (Yes, I am a tree hugger sorts J). Just when I turned to walk away from there, a part of me told me to walk up to the man and see what exactly is going on. So I decided to walk towards him while he is focused on throwing that rock up every time it fell down. The minute I got closer to him, my heart sank for judging him from afar. He was a man who seemed to be in his early 20s, with Down’s syndrome. He volunteered to tell me that he has something stuck in the tree. I stopped to look in the direction he showed and could not find anything. He had a remote control in his hand so I thought there must be some toy. There it was! His remote-controlled airplane stuck in the branches of this redwood tree! I told him that stone might break his toy and tried to get it with my umbrella. While my umbrella did not get his toy it moved the branches enough for him to manipulate it with his remote! Voila! He got his airplane back. He jumped with so much joy that it would have made anyone happy! I was happy that I stayed there to learn the truth instead of walking away with my presumption. A lesson well learned, hope it stays with me…